Kat
14-06-2005, 12:38
Hi there,
right before I start off I need to say that I have already worked out I make a terrific 'worker / employee' I am definately externally motivated! Some part of my work-from-home dilema comes from not having a high degree of self-motivation / self imposed routines etc.
The situation:
I am currently a non-active consultant for a scrapbooking party-plan / direct sales organisation. I love the products, I use them, I've been doing it for 3 years but without a lot of success or a lot of real focus on my part.
I also have recently been selling items (mostly secondhand books) on ebay and finding that I enjoyed the process but was only 'breaking even' though potentially could make some pocket money.
Recently we had my dd's naming ceremony and I tried my hand at icing a fruitcake / mudcake for the event (my mum used to do this and I haven't done a cake since my teenage years). I discovered not only could I do it, but it looked professional and I thoroughly enjoyed every minute!
So these are my 3 main work from home possibilities as I see it.
I am having issues though with all of them to a greater and lesser extent.
I have worked out that my main success in the past with being a good salesperson / effecient at what I do is having a really good understanding of the sytem in which I am working in. I work this by always having a response for a 'no' e.g. in the past I did admin and worked at account reconciliation for a qld-wide organisation. When I needed to get documentation in from a remote office, I had a 100% success rate - with one place I eventually had to get the financial manager to sign a memo to the office but it got the results - they turned the place upside down and sent the paperwork in.
What I am finding is that with the scrapbooking I have had a lot of inconsistent feedback / behaviour / responses and I am floundering with how to keep going. I find that influences me to be really negative which obviously isn't a good look if you are trying to sell things! There is also a problem with an estranged family member also having joined up ironically with the same team as me and she is closer and more chummy with my team leader than I am. Yet I really want to make a go of it and have a beginning with this. In theory I suppose I should be able to 'let go of' the issues and just run my own business, but for some reason I feel reluctant to jump in to the situation again. I feel that there is something fishy about the whole thing. Perhaps that is just from how I was treated in the past with inconsistency and lack of communication, then again it might be something more tangible like breaching my privacy by discussing me with said relative / other people in the team. One of my main problems is that I am remote from my team and prefer email communication but my direct upline doesn't respond to emails. However the team leader does, but keeps deflecting my queries back to my direct upline and then I am back where I started from. After 4 weeks of trying to communicate with these people I ended up getting a reasonable response but I'm just feeling jaded plus until this week haven't then had the spare cash to sign up again.
With the ebay stuff basically I just seem to have 'lost it' in terms of regularly checking the site and of being motivated. The wind is a bit out of my sails. I guess since we moved the 'office' from near the telly to near the baby. Typing seems to wake her up plus for a while there I used to 'work' during tv shows and thus got lots done. However most of the things we were watching are no longer on telly so its not as simple as 'move the office back' *grin*
As for cake decorating - I am just not sure how to begin the business, particularly how to get leads / orders. Any suggestions?
Does anyone here have any other ideas / feedback? Can you see something I am completely missing from what I've written? :rolleyes:
I would love to hear back from others.
regards
Kat
right before I start off I need to say that I have already worked out I make a terrific 'worker / employee' I am definately externally motivated! Some part of my work-from-home dilema comes from not having a high degree of self-motivation / self imposed routines etc.
The situation:
I am currently a non-active consultant for a scrapbooking party-plan / direct sales organisation. I love the products, I use them, I've been doing it for 3 years but without a lot of success or a lot of real focus on my part.
I also have recently been selling items (mostly secondhand books) on ebay and finding that I enjoyed the process but was only 'breaking even' though potentially could make some pocket money.
Recently we had my dd's naming ceremony and I tried my hand at icing a fruitcake / mudcake for the event (my mum used to do this and I haven't done a cake since my teenage years). I discovered not only could I do it, but it looked professional and I thoroughly enjoyed every minute!
So these are my 3 main work from home possibilities as I see it.
I am having issues though with all of them to a greater and lesser extent.
I have worked out that my main success in the past with being a good salesperson / effecient at what I do is having a really good understanding of the sytem in which I am working in. I work this by always having a response for a 'no' e.g. in the past I did admin and worked at account reconciliation for a qld-wide organisation. When I needed to get documentation in from a remote office, I had a 100% success rate - with one place I eventually had to get the financial manager to sign a memo to the office but it got the results - they turned the place upside down and sent the paperwork in.
What I am finding is that with the scrapbooking I have had a lot of inconsistent feedback / behaviour / responses and I am floundering with how to keep going. I find that influences me to be really negative which obviously isn't a good look if you are trying to sell things! There is also a problem with an estranged family member also having joined up ironically with the same team as me and she is closer and more chummy with my team leader than I am. Yet I really want to make a go of it and have a beginning with this. In theory I suppose I should be able to 'let go of' the issues and just run my own business, but for some reason I feel reluctant to jump in to the situation again. I feel that there is something fishy about the whole thing. Perhaps that is just from how I was treated in the past with inconsistency and lack of communication, then again it might be something more tangible like breaching my privacy by discussing me with said relative / other people in the team. One of my main problems is that I am remote from my team and prefer email communication but my direct upline doesn't respond to emails. However the team leader does, but keeps deflecting my queries back to my direct upline and then I am back where I started from. After 4 weeks of trying to communicate with these people I ended up getting a reasonable response but I'm just feeling jaded plus until this week haven't then had the spare cash to sign up again.
With the ebay stuff basically I just seem to have 'lost it' in terms of regularly checking the site and of being motivated. The wind is a bit out of my sails. I guess since we moved the 'office' from near the telly to near the baby. Typing seems to wake her up plus for a while there I used to 'work' during tv shows and thus got lots done. However most of the things we were watching are no longer on telly so its not as simple as 'move the office back' *grin*
As for cake decorating - I am just not sure how to begin the business, particularly how to get leads / orders. Any suggestions?
Does anyone here have any other ideas / feedback? Can you see something I am completely missing from what I've written? :rolleyes:
I would love to hear back from others.
regards
Kat